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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

SPOILERS: Gotham by Midnight #4

I've been waiting for this book to give me a reason why it was set in Gotham (outside of obvious marketing benefits) and sure enough, this issue does just that, renewing my faith in it a bit.

The Spoilers:

So, no one in the Midnight Shift is quite sure whats going on with spooky tentacle creature thing, so that means it's time for Jim Corrigan and the IA Officer to get a drink, and wouldn't you know it, another "branch" of that creature is trying to poison them with alcohol or something.

Corrigan is on the phone with the Doctor of the group, trying to translate the stuff the creature is saying, but his time is short, as judgement has waited long enough, and the Spectre wakes up.

Spectre grows big, fighting big shadow monster spawning the creature. Straight up spooky Godzilla type stuff. Dr. Tarr figures it all out with Corrigan's last bit of speech to translate. The creature has done three things, stolen children, sending them back not speaking their language unable to fit in with their family. Spread small pox. Poisoned with alcohol. Sounds like stuff that happened to the Native Americans way back when... Wonder if Gotham was settled after they decimated a native tri--oh WAIT.

The Miagani. Yep, this is all some spooky voodoo or something left over from them, and now The Spectre sits ready to judge and Gotham could very well be found guilty. Oh hey look, Batman is flying around in his plane or something.

END.

The Opinion:

Well, fuck me, right? Maybe I'm just impatient, because this issue did actually deliver the ties to Gotham that the previous three issues have been lacking severely. But was I wrong to feel that way early on? I don't think so. When you're talking about a book like this in the grand scheme of things, it's starting out on the fringes, no two ways about that. I was on the very verge of dropping this, only deciding to stay because I would feel crappy dropping it so close to the Convergence break. Anything that could have gotten it's hooks into me a bit earlier would have been appreciated. Sure, the parts were there, but the solution was a good deal of info dump numerous issues later, and I doubt many people would have figured "Hey, this is like what happened to the Native Americans!"

Oh well, that's in the past now. The important thing is I felt like this issue delivered what it needed to, and now instead of sticking around just because I feel obligated to, I actually want to read the next issue.